With Each Moment
by NelliethePieAngel
Summary: Nellie made a dangerous attempt when Benjamin taken taken from her, but will Sweeney choose to save her from her own self when she tries it again? Will Sweeney save her, or lose her forever? Please r r.
1. Chapter 1

**Moment Of Despair**

**I thought of this suddenly. FYI-Making pretend there's no Toby in this story for reasons of me not wanting someone to seem like another Lucy. Mrs. Lovett has loved Sweeney since he was Benjamin Barker, and he's always thought of her as a close companion. Sweeney's so different though, he only seems to think of her as an annoyance. Can a rash thought change Sweeney's feelings about her though, will he realize how much he really needs her? I do not own Sweeney Todd and I never will, so pleaaaase stop asking. **

The rain fell down harshly on Fleet Street. No one would be coming for a shave or pie today, that was for sure. The baker looked out of the window feeling lonely without the barber there with her. There had only been one other day when she felt so lonely on a rainy day such as this one. She started dozing out in her armchair and began to flashback to that day.

It was after closing time and Nellie Lovett was reading a book when Lucy cam running into the house with Johanna in her stroller. The heavy rainfall had Lucy soaked from head to toe. The morning and afternoon had been so wonderful, but the late afternoon and even had been miserable, no had even bothered to come in for a pie during the dinner hours. Lucy was crying hysterically, and ran up to her room with Johanna. Mrs. Lovett thought it best to leave her alone, though she was concerned by what was causing the woman so much pain. After some time Mrs. Lovett decided to ask Lucy about what was wrong. She walked up the staircase to the second floor apartment of Benjamin and Lucy Barker. Lucy wasn't anywhere in the barber shop, so Nellie checked out their bedroom, and sure enough, there was Lucy holding Johanna and crying. Mrs. Lovett walked up her and sat down next to her. "Lucy, what is it? What's wrong, why didn't Ben... Mr. Barker come home wiv you two?"

Hearing his name only made Lucy cry harder. "He's gone Nellie, Ben's gone for forever. We were taking a walk through the park when these two policemen came rushing over. One hit 'im over the head with his nightstick, and then they both carried 'im away. Judge Turpin came over to check on me, I asked what had happened, he said that Benjamin had acted foolishly and needed to face the consequences." Mrs. Lovett looked at her with disbelief, it couldn't be. Benjamin loved his family, he'd never do anything foolish enough to get him sent to jail for life. Poor Lucy would never see her husband again, poor little Johanna would grow up without a father. And she, well she'd never see the man she'd fallen in love with ever again. She'd never even told him that she loved him, it had always been a secret she hid from the world. She gave Lucy a consoling hug, telling her that everything would be alright. She walked away knowing that it was a kind and hopeful thing to say, even though she knew that it couldn't be true. She ran outside and leaned over the edge of the staircase, finding it hard to breath. She looked around frantically, not believing this horrible feeling she felt in the pit of her stomach. She ran to the far edge of the staircase and stood there, trying to catch her breath. The only that came out were shirt little gasps. Then she saw it, a pull-down ladder that led to the roof. She always loved sitting on the roof when she was a young girl and watching the sunset, sunrise and the stars at night. Sometimes she'd even walk on the very top and pretend she was a tight-rope walker at the circus, being careful not to fall over. She climbed the ladder and stood motionless when she got to the top. She had forgotten over the years how high up it was. She didn't care though, she was frightened and angry, not at Ben but at how down and out she felt. She felt helpless,. she felt lost and completely confused! All she could feel was the harsh wind, and the freezing rain threatening to burn through her skin.

She took a deep breath and walked around on the roof, not caring how crazy she might have looked to some passerby. No one would be passing by or have time to watch her with this bad weather. She stood at the edge of the building and just looked up at he sky. She reached out her arms and let the rain fall down on her skin, loving the feel of the rain on her hands. She let all of the emotions overwhelm her and tears started falling down her cheeks. Suddenly her feeling of carelessness disappeared with thoughts of the lost barber once more. Now she felt something else as she stood there, fear. She looked down and saw one of her feet danging over the end, and she swore she had that feeling. She closed her eyes tightly and tried to push the thought away, she just felt so heartbroken. She gathered some strength and forced herself to back away from the edge of the apartment. She sat herself down, sitting cross-legged. She hid her face in her hands and began sobbing. She wasn't even married to him, and she hated that he was making her feel this way. She was risking her life so that she wouldn't have to deal with the incredible heartbreak she was dealing with. Was Lucy feeling the same way? If she was she was dealing with it a bit better. Nellie wished that it would all be over soon, and that she'd be able to get over the barber. She would in time, but not for long.

**So I thought that I was going to be able to fit everything into one chapter, but I can fit it into two, coolio! I hope you liked chapter 1 so far, let me know if I should continue it or throw it in a cyber fireplace. Soon you'll see why I don't want Toby to be involved with this story as I mentioned in the beginning. I HOPE YOU ALL HAVE A WONDERFUL NEW YEAR, HAPPY 2010!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Did you do anything on New Years Eve (parties, fun time, etc). My friend stayed until early afternoon after sleeping over last night. Then it was pretty simple until after dinner. I saw Sherlock Holmes, and it kicked major butt! Seriously, go RD JR.!!! Invisible Johnny as Sweeney comes up behind me pouting adorably. Sweeney: So you mean you don't love me anymore Eleanor? You'd rather love a crime solver then a crime starter? Me: Never Sweeney, you'll always be my favorite guy from London! Even if there were explosions and more combat in that, I'll always choose you in the end. Sweeney: So you won't forget I exist? Me: No flippin' way dude, I loves you forever. I mean yeah, Sherlock fighting Blackwood on the bridge was pretty darn epic, but I can love throat slitting too! I'm flexible that way Sweeners. Sweeney: Thank you Eleanor, you're a loyal fangirl. As are all of my fangirls. HUGS FOR SWEENEY! Peace out and again, happy 2010!!!! **


	2. Moment Of Weakness And Bliss

**Moment Of Weakness And Bliss**

**Whoa, I wasn't sure how many reviews I'd get for this, but cool. I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed, because now there's a chapter 2. So it happens again, but now the fans must ask. In her second try will it work out, or will someone try to help her? Hope you all really enjoy it. I hope you all recall what I said before, about me not owning Sweeney. That fact is still true, but if at any time he decides he would like to be mine, I'll accept with a smiling face and open arms. P.S. I'd really like to thank the-sadisticalovett-nutcase and littlezion, who helped me with some ideas when I was stuck. : )**

Nellie woke with a jolt, sweating as if she was in a living nightmare. She looked around frantically, then took a sigh of relief when she realized that it'd only been a nightmare, a horrible memory. Nellie focused and saw light coming through the window, it was already morning, and still raining. She got up quickly, she obviously had overslept. Mrs. Lovett ran into the shop and began making up breakfast for herself and Sweeney Todd. She didn't know why she bothered with that, he never ate it anyway. Maybe she was simply readying herself for when he did finally take one bite out of his eggs or toast. This morning was different though, this morning not even he could resist the breakfast she had decided to make.

Nellie opened the door and walked over to the barber, who was looking outside his large window, as usual. "Come on love, it's breakfast time." That was when she got a good look at his face. "Gawd Mr. T, I know you don't sleep much love. Really though, you've never looked this bad." She set down his breakfast and brought him over to his chair. "You really look bad, take a seat." She walked back over to his desk and picked up his breakfast. "I made somethin' special this mornin' love, not the usual eggs, bacon and toast. 'ow's about you eat a bit, even if it's just one bite." Sweeney looked over at the chocolate-chip pancakes and orange juice. His expressions turned from one of fatigue to one of fury. He glared at the baker, picked up the plate of pancakes and threw it at the wall. She looked at him upset and confused.

Sweeney walked over to Mrs. Lovett, grabbed her by the shoulder and pushed her up against the wall. He brought the razor up to her throat and let out a growl as he spoke harshly to her. "I don't want any bloody pancakes! I never eat what you feed me you mindless wretch! Those kind of pancakes were the last thing I ate before I lost my wife and child. Are you trying to ruin me on purpose, because you're doing a bloody good job!" Mrs. Lovett started to tear and tried to speak, but nothing would come out. Instead, she got down and picked up the broken pieces of the glass plate. It was the nicest plate she had owned, a place handed down from her great-grandmother. It had been a beautiful white glass plate with red roses around the boarder and a large yellow daisy in the center. He closed the razor and watched the baker. Nellie threw the broken pieces into the garbage and just stared at him, trying hard not to show how frightened and sad she felt, but trying to look angry instead. She walked up to him, stamping her feet to stress her agry emotions. He stopped her though and bared his teeth. ":Don't even think about it my pet, you try to hurt me..." he flicked the razor open as quickly as he had closed it and waved it in front of her eyes "... and hurt you." Mrs. Lovett gasped shocked, then swatted the razor away from his hold. It clattered to the floor and Sweeney grabbed Mrs. Lovett's wrist. "Get this through your head Mrs. Lovett, I don't care what you do. I don't care if you cook me breakfast. If you sing about living by the sea, if you die of the plague. All you're good for to me, is baking meat pies. The only way you help me, is by hiding my murders by baking my victims into your pies. If it weren't for the pies, I would have rid of you long ago. You're nothing more than an overactive, talkative, annoying..." he looked at her low cut dress "... little whore!"

Mrs. Lovett backed away slowly and ran out of his barber shop. She stood at the endge of the staircase, as she had in her nightmarish memory. A whore, she knew she dressed a little openly, you could say. A whore though, never, the only reason she made herself look this way was to get his attention. And boy she had apparently caught his attention, but certainly not in the way she had hoped. That's when that feeling came back, she felt sick to her stomach. Nellie sat on the top step and played the whole scene over again, from when Sweeney threatened her with his razor the first time, to where he called her, something not very nice. The worst part was that, from when she swatted the razor out of his hands to when he called her a whore, seemed to slow down apart from the rest of it. Questioned buzzed in her head and made her want to scream out in agony. Did he really mean it when he called her a '"little whore?" Was it just in a moment of intense rage that she shouldn't be letting herself worry over? Did he really **not**care if she died of the plague? Would he really have killed her before if it wasn't for her idea to bake his unfortunate customer's into her pies? Then she began feeling worse, wondering if that's all she was worth at all. Nellie began to breathe shakily, remembering perfectly now how she'd felt when Benjamin was taken from her. This time it felt even worse though. The baker didn't even know if Sweeney knew how much his words had harmed her, especially that last word that he pushed out of his mouth. She let the freezing rain pour down on her soaked head, she didn't care if she got a cold. She just didn't know what to care about anymore, Sweeney didn't care about her, so why did she have to care so much about him? Why did she have to love him? Why couldn't she just have let him leave that first day he walked into her shop, he was about to anyhow and who could've blamed him then, she had the worst pies in London then. She thought back to her past and realized, nothing had be all that great. She never grew up with any sisters, just two idiotic brothers who bullied her constantly. Her mother died when she was only 5, and her father was too centered in on his job or his sons. She had barely existed to him, she had days of wishing she was a boy in fact, just so that he'd care about her even just a bit. She'd fallen in love with the beautiful Benjamin Barker at 16, but her father didn't approve of anything. He was horrible about it with the way he put her down, asking why a wonderful and good-looking **(not in THAT way if you're wondering) **boy, could ever love someone as wretched and ugly as her. She'd tried to run at one point, she was proud she was a fast runner, but her father had caught up to her and punished her viciously for trying to run away. In her early 20's she'd been forced to marry Albert Lovett. He was a fat and cruel man, who treated her more like a servant than his wife. Every time she tried to act like a wife to him, he'd get aggravated and push her away, just as Mr. Todd does now. Remembering back, Nellie Lovett now wondered if her husband had even known what marriage was. She had planned out her perfect wedding and marriage at a young age, and found the perfect man to marry at age 16, but none of it had worked out according to plan. Then Albert had died, and not too long after, so had Benjamin. Her pie business went terribly downhill, and she thought she'd given up all hope until a mysterious man came through her door. She fell in love with him so fast, she felt like she needed to take a resat to let it all sink it. Before Nellie knew it, she was creating plans with this man, not of marriage, but of murder. Why did she love him so much though, he treated her the same way her late husband had, why did he have to be the replacement for the wonderful man she'd fallen in love with years ago? Why did he have to change?

She looked around and found it again, just loike in her nightmare. She reenacted the scene exactly as she had in her dream, if this had been some sort of performance, she hoped she'd be capturing the audiences interest at this point.

While Mrs. Lovett felt a moment of thrilling and fearful power, Sweeney sat in his chair, thinking back on their fight. Why had he called her a whore? He knew he didn't really think that, in fact, he felt like he'd recently been feeling something completely different for the baker. He felt like he'd felt about Lucy, only it felt even stronger than that. If it was love, why was he feeling it stronger for Mrs. Lovett than he had for his own wife. **Had**, that must have been it, his wife was in the past, and Nellie Lovett was the present. And e wasn't sure, but a part of him wanted her to be in the future as well, he knew what he had to do now. He had to try to get Lucy out of his head. What was obsessing over something/someone worth, if that something/someone was gone and could never come back? He had to change, this new feeling had been growing in him for a few weeks now, and he could have just ruined it. He knew he had to apologize, to tell her that she was never a whore and never would be. Sweeney would explain that the only reason he acted the way that he did was because the last time he'd eaten those exact type of pancakes, was the same day he'd been taken from his family. He went over what he'd say to her as he put on his black leather jacket and walked outside into the freezing rain. Not seeing her her looked down from the staircase, she wasn't sitting around outside, then he looked around in all directions. He finally saw it, the pull-down ladder he'd use when he was young to watch the sky and all of it's colors, had been lowered. He climbed to the roof, still thinking about what he'd say to Nellie. Would he start out by apologizing, would he begin by saying that he thought he was falling for her? He didn't have as much time as he thought though, he saw her standing at the edge of the building, and as fear swept over him, ran behind her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her away from the edge, they landed with a thud on the slanted roof. "Are you daft woman, what were you thinking?" Sweeney's thoughts interrupted him. _Nice going Sweeney, you planned on aplogizing and you yell instead._ Nellie started to shiver, Sweeney took off his jacket and wrapped it around her, he didn't need it anyway.

Tears of fear fell down her cheeks, but all that showed in her eyes was a sudden rush of anger. "What would you care if I fell, huh? I'm just a little whore, in case you don't remember to a few minutes ago. You wouldn't care if anything 'appened to me, all I'm good for is 'iding away your murders in my bloody pies!" She looked away from him, hurt and confused. Why had he saved her if he didn't care about her?

Sweeney took a deep breath, and took her arm. "I'm sorry Mrs. Lovett, I shouldn't have said that. I was just angry at the memory that I had when I saw the pancakes, sounds strange I know. They were just, the last thing I ate with Lucy before going to Australia." He pulled on her arm slightly and she turned to face him. "You aren't really worthless, in fact you're the only reason I'm alive right now. It was wrong to say that I didn't care if you died or any of that, and it was especially wrong for me to call you, you know." She nodded and dried her tears, a small hint of a smile starting to appear. "I think I'm actually starting to understand why you do make yourself look like that, I just didn't think it'd take me so long to realize it. And that's what I need to talk to you about." Nellie looked at him confused, did she do something else wrong? "Lucy was my only wife, she was everything to me." Mrs. Lovett frowned and looked away. He sensed her discomfort, and made her look ah him again. "That's just it though Nell, she **was **everything to me. I don't know, in these past few weeks I've been feeling the same way, those feelings where I knew that we were meant to be together, they started coming back. And seeing you just now, really pushed those feelings at me. The thing that got me thinking about it at first, was that I wasn't even feeling that way about Lucy. I'd imagine Lucy, but you got in the way." Mrs. Lovett rose an eyebrow at him. He held onto her freezing hands and smiled slightly, raising the edges of his lips only slightly. "Lucy was in the past. Now I know I've been giving you an incredibly hard time Nell, but..."

He stopped as Mrs. Lovett wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her head on his shoulder. "You called me Nell, I didn't think you even remembered my name. Thank you for saving me and, I've always loved you. And no matter how much you may protest it, I'll never be able to stop Sweeney Todd." Before he could say anything she attached her lips to his and kissed him. He kissed her back and they sat kissing on the roof as the rain fell all around them. Nellie knew it wasn't the most beautiful setting. So instead she went into her imagination and put them kissing on the beach, with the sun setting beautifully on the horizon. She sighed as she kissed him, the perfect final moment to a not so perfect morning.

**So there it is, chapter 2 of ****With Each Moment****. I really hope enjoyed yourself, and I must say this. I'm sorry if Sweeney was ooc in this, I really am. I just wanted him to end up happy with her sooo badly and it came to me suddenly, so I acted on it. I really do love Toddett and Sweeney Todd in general too much, but whatever. My dad says I need to stop, so when he's not near I just flick my wrist downward and say "Naaaah" quietly.**

**I just had to make that ending happen, I think rain kisses rule. If I watch movies with them in the movie I point to the screen and say "Rain kiss!" I had a fun time writing it and I hope you had fin reading it. Remember to review my friends, :). P.S,. MoMA kicked major booty. It was Tim Burton heaven and oh so beautiful. Just stinks that I couldn't take pictures, but oh well. It was amazing all of the detail that went into everything, it made me an even bigger fanatic than I was and even though I already appreciated him a whole lot, it made me appreciate him even more. What he does for us, since his beginning artwork, wow. His small puns like "Tongue Twister" and others made me actually draw my own thing last night. So now I have a picture of this really tall lady all in red, with a black frog in her throat. XD It's silly, but I lovett, and I love T.B. He's my hero! Suddenly Sweeney appears. Sweeney: Where are my razors?! Me (Quietly): They're on display, at a museum. Sweeney: Get them back! Me: No, they're at an exhibit of my fave. director/hero. I don't wanna steal from his most wonderful artwork. Sweeney: *Rolls eyes and leaves.* Sorry about that all, PEACE OUT PEOPLE, until next time this is NelliethePieAngel, signing off! **


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